The Associated Press analyzed ship-tracking data showing that the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel dubbed the Suez Rajan started the hours-long ship-to-ship oil transfer to a tanker, the MR Euphrates, close to Galveston, about 70 kilometers southeast of Houston.

The fate of the cargo on the Suez Rajan has been experiencing broader tensions between the US as well as the Islamic Republic, even as Washington and Tehran work for a trade of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets captured in South Korea for the release of five Iranian-American individuals who were held in Tehran.

Iran has long been striving to evade the sanctions and continues to sell the oil onboard, while the US and its allies have been detaining cargoes since 2019 after the nation’s nuclear deal allowed the trade to collapse.